Sunday, December 8, 2013

Kingdom
Rush by Ironhide Games is a tower defense game, the main object of which
is to defend your home base by optimally placing structures to fend off the waves and waves of enemies trying to overwhelm your forces
with a snowballing determination. You have four different classes of towers to
build: magic (ranged and powerful, but some enemies are immune), Archer (ranged
and weak, but cheap to build), Barracks (ground soldiers with little range who
can slow down the enemy), and Cannons (ranged and very powerful but slow). The
enemies are widely varied (goblins, trolls, bandits and other baddies) and
almost every level presents a different challenge, be it giant bosses, new
mechanics, or added lanes for enemies to attack you.

Kingdom Rush feels good on a
mobile device. Every tap feels crisp, the accuracy is perfect and even on the
screen of my phone I always felt like I had just enough room to maneuver without
being cramped. The music fits the game, which is really the most I can say
about it. Characters you tap make sound effects or shout movie references and the
art style is cartoonish… but not cute. The layout fit my device, and I had no
frame rate stutters or other issues I’ve come to associate with mobile titles. Overall,
Kingdom Rush has an incredible amount of polish. From the menus to the in-game
actions, the game looks and feels miles ahead of nearly any other mobile
title.

This is
not a game brimming with story, customization or really any other bells and
whistles. The only addition to the core game is an encyclopedia which has
specific descriptions of each enemy you’ve encountered. It seems as though
rather than including anything extra, the developers decided to perfect every
feature thinkable in the core game. Tap on any of your ground forces and you
can read their names and stats, tap on any enemy and you can see their health
bar along with their attack damage. This is by no means a mind-blowing feature
but it’s the type of little touch that makes Kingdom Rush feel like a fully
realized game.

This
game does get quite punishing towards the end stages; I had to roll the
difficulty down to casual on a few of the final stages. At points I did feel as
though the game was impossible without add-ons and upgrades. I should note
however that unlike entirely too many mobile games lately, all of the items
purchasable in game can only be purchased through currency earned in-game. NO
MICROTRANSACTIONS!

In
writing this review, I tried to come up with a few criticisms. I was mostly unsuccessful,
save for two issues. The first, and my only serious issue with this game, is
that it is not at all feasible as a quick pick up and play game. One level would typically take me 25
minutes or so to complete. There is also no option to save progress through a
level or hold your spot--exit the game for a moment to check something, and
your progress is gone. My second and much smaller criticism is the lack of
customization. With the attention to detail this game exhibits, I would have enjoyed
some way to make my experience slightly different from others. Something as
simple as changing the names of heroes or the colors of their clothing would
have gone a long way for me.

Overall,
Kingdom Rush is great; I would even go so far as to call it an exemplar of the
tower defense genre. Without a doubt, this is the best tower defense game I
have played on mobile, and I’ve played plenty. This mobile title is polished,
funny and addictive; most of all, it’s enjoyable. It’s not exactly a new game,
having been out on mobile devices for well over a year at this point, but it’s a
steal at $3 ($1 for the standard version).

If you
enjoyed my review feel free to comment and let me know what you think I should
review next!